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As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.

• “found” - rather underwhelming for a gigantic insect
• “transformed” - is a bit magical, and I imagine the process taking somewhere between 5 seconds and 5 minutes
• “Gigantic insect” - Insect is pretty technical word. Gigantic is a fun word, It could be a word Dr. Seuss made
• Syntax: “one morning” is placed between “awoke… from” - I feel this is a bit awkward. The same is true for “in his bed” between “transformed...into”
• Imagery/details: The “gigantic insect in a bed” is little funny and ridiculous
• Structure: “As [he did this], he found [this]” - This implies the actions are simultaneous, somewhat causal
• Other: Uneasy dreams foreshadows the transformation

Gregor Samsa woke from uneasy dreams one morning to find himself changed into a giant bug.

• diction: “woke” - abrupt
• “changed” - basic word, which provides less expectation for something weird, has a “it just kind of happened attitude”
• “giant bug” - simple words, like more of a kid’s story
• Syntax: “one morning” is placed after “from uneasy dreams”
• Drops “in bed” - which I totally agree with, “in bed” is awkward to fit in
• Imagery/details: Bug is more ambiguous, be I envision more of a giant cockroach or beetle, instead of some three pieced insect
• Structure: With the drop of “in bed” makes the structure more streamlined, and one morning doesn’t interrupt “woke from...”

When Gregor Samsa awoke from troubled dreams one morning he found he had been transformed in his bed into an enormous bug.

• Diction: “troubled” - “double, double, toil and trouble” got that magic going on. Troubled to me means less of lightly tossing and turning and awkward grunts, like with uneasy, but more of a waking up and then considering the dream “low key problematic”. I think troubled dreams makes it sound like it was built on subconscious issues that were already there. While uneasy dreams cause discomfort to most.
• “transformed” again
• “enormous” - I would put it somewhere between
• Structure: “When this happened, that happened”
• Syntax: “he found he had been” implies that there was someone that did this to him.
• Imagery/details: Honestly, for me, there’s not much special about the imagery here.

One morning, upon awakening from agitated dreams, Gregor Samsa found himself, in his bed, transformed into a monstrous vermin.

• Diction: “Agitated” - negative, pretty active word, like he is physically moving in his bed
• “Monstrous vermin” - very negative connotations.
• Monstrous’ root is the noun “Monster”
• Syntax: “One morning,” at beginning. more narrative like “once upon a time”
• Gregor Samsa is placed much later in the sentence
• Structure: Many commas, a long and complicated sentence, but at the same time, a bit more sensical without run ons like Gregor Samsa awoke One Morning from uneasy dreams. One Morning was very thankful.
• Imagery - “Monstrous vermin”, something grotesque
• Other: The severity of “agitated dreams” matches the intense imagery of the insect
• Alliteration: “awakening from agitated”

Original: Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheuren Ungeziefer verwandelt.

After analyzing each, respond to the following questions in a well-developed (2-3 paragraphs) response- think about the translations as a whole: How does the word choice, syntax, punctuation, and imagery shift in each affect meaning? Is one more effective than another? Why? What does this exercise bring up about the difficulty of reading translated texts? How do different translations effect the tone of the sentence?

The second translation is very simple and streamlined. It drops “in his bed” which was awkwardly squished into the other translations. On the other hand, it also drops the absurd imagery of a giant bug in a human bed, which is hilarious.

Both the first and third translations contrast the both the fact of a large bug in a human bed, but also the description of the bug. “Gigantic insect” mixes a goofy word with a fairly formal term. “Enormous” and “bug” are both fairly informal, but they differ in syllable count. These contrasts highlight the absurdity of the predicament.

I think syntax plays a large role in affecting meaning. In Translation 4, there is strong negative diction, but the only reason these terms were able to take is because Gregor Samsa’s name was placed later on in the sentence in order to distance Gregor. Otherwise, we’d just feel really bad for Gregor because he had to be so ugly, instead of fearing and disliking Gregor. Syntax is able to take you with or push you away from characters, and how someone feel about a character, especially the main character, is very important in a novel.

The fourth translation has far and away the most distant meaning from the rest. It is harsh, with negatively connotated diction like monstrous and vermin. It also puts Gregory Samsa away from the beginning of the sentence, and in that, distances him from the reader. In regards to punctuation, the heavy use of commas and interjecting phrases, the fourth translation builds suspense before getting to the “monstrous vermin.” In this, it gives the start of the story a horror vibe, like it could be told around campfires. This horror theme doesn’t work well with translations one and three. The use of structure with “As Gregor Samsa woke”’ and “When Gregor Samsa awoke” takes the reader with Gregor, so we identify more with him. The tone in translation 2, as a short and to-the-point version, is more informative.

    This exercise shows how different translations of the same text can be.

Translation 2, in particular, shows how information can be simply dropped. He could be at his bathroom at a mirror, we don’t know now. This show that by reading a translation, we might not just get a different interpretation of information, but simply miss some of it.

Translation 4 shows how drastically the tone can vary from translation to translation. Like, if this person translated diplomatic or military messages, I would be very scared because they could traslate “several shots” into “a multitude of bullets” and freak people out with a harsher tone.